Halo: Reach (2010)

A pretty great Halo game with great feeling weapons and a more heartfelt story than most other Halo games. The on-foot portions of the game never felt better- super responsive, fun scenarios, good times. The part that was lacking in this one was the vehicles. Some of the most memorable Halo levels were wide-open vehicle slogs, and this one just didn't have them! The music just didn't quite hit the high points of the series. Had a great time playing it!

It just makes me sad thinking how bad this series has faired since Halo Reach. 4 was OK, 5 was forgettable, and Infinite never released co-op! Such a travesty. Here's hoping that the collection will be released on the PS5 and I can play through them all with my son!

Halo: Reach is easily one of the greatest Xbox 360 games ever made. Some of my best memories came from playing it with my cousins and mates, whether we were completing the campaign together, playing local multiplayer or spending hours messing around in Forge.

The sandbox was incredible. There were so many weapons, vehicles and abilities to experiment with, and Forge gave players almost unlimited freedom to create maps, custom modes and completely ridiculous situations. You could play seriously or spend an entire night doing absolutely nothing productive and still have a great time.

The multiplayer was brilliant and had an unbelievable amount of replayability. Between the standard modes, custom games, Firefight and Forge creations, there was always something different to play. Local co-op made it even more special because it was the type of game you could enjoy for hours with people sitting beside you.

The campaign was phenomenal, especially when played cooperatively. Noble Team were memorable, the missions were varied and the story had a much more emotional and hopeless tone than most Halo games. Even though you already know Reach is going to fall, the game still makes every sacrifice feel important.

The final mission, where your only objective is to survive for as long as possible, is absolute cinema. There is no heroic escape or last-minute rescue. You simply keep fighting until Noble Six can no longer continue. It was the perfect ending to the story and remains one of the most memorable final missions in gaming.

Amazing sandbox, amazing multiplayer and a genuinely outstanding campaign. Halo: Reach is one of the all-time greats.

Been replaying Halo Reach on legendary and while the game is relatively a breeze, I have to take one issue to heart, which is that I, on a whim, turned on scoring. Just on the offchance I somehow manage to obtain par score myself. However, the game stops giving you points after you go over par time, which, okay sounds fair. But you know what's absolute bullshit?

They'll SUBTRACT points from your score after par time too, which is just downright petty, honestly. I love Halo especially Bungie Halo considering 343 is a joke, but jesus is that a really shitty little thing to do.

I've never played the Halo campaign so I got the master chief collection and started going down the story in chronological order with a friend.

The story isn't anything special since it's just setting up Halo CE (it's like rouge one lol). Gameplays great, i like how the missions are varied in order to keep things fun. Great shooter to play with friends in co-op. Looking forward to continue the Halo campaign.

Not much to say, i recommend it with coop, didn't try multi but I'm guessing it's just more halo which should be fun.

SOME SPOILERS IN THIS

Halo: Reach is easily the best Halo story to date. It tackles themes that leave a huge impression and is just such a cool experience all around.

Halo: Reach is such a fascinating game... It's Bungie's last Halo game and they sure went out with a bang.

This game was marketed in such a way that it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Throughout the franchise, they reference the events of what happened on the planet Reach a lot and to finally see what happens is so cool. The whole "Remember Reach" marketing campaign, playing it up to feel like this tragic disaster is so cool.

The music is fantastic. One of the best soundtracks in the entire franchise and it serves the story and world very well.

The gameplay isn't the best. Don't get me wrong, the enemy AI is great, it's challenging and it leaves a lot of room to be creative. It just doesn't feel great to play as much as I'd like. The Power-Up system could definitely be better. Still great overall. I will say, the presentation is fantastic and the set pieces are incredible.

What this game gets perfectly is the story. Taking place 21 Years after Halo Wars, and just weeks before the events of the first game, you follow a team of Spartan III's known as Noble Team on the planet Reach. You are in the shoes of Noble Six. They are essentially you because the game is centered around customizing them. Their voice, armor, and gender can all be changed. Anyways, Noble Six along with the rest of the Noble Team discover that the Covenant is on Reach. You follow Noble Team as the planet is dying... Watching your team fall one by one is insane and the ending is very bittersweet. But man is it investing. A story that tackles themes of loss is so well executed and it sets up the events of the first game really well.

Halo: Reach is a fantastic game that I would recommend to almost anyone regardless of whether they are into FPS or this franchise or not. Seriously... Play it

4/5

Would Recommend

Earlier this afternoon I finished this game with my brother. We each recently got an Xbox Series S, and so we decided to give this game a playthrough via the online coop offered through the Halo Master Chief Collection. To think that we both got this game for a small fee as part of GamePass, along with hundreds of other games, is still shocking to both of us. To think that this game is still this good more than 10 years after it released is really something.

I remember playing it for the first time. I remember being immensely excited for it. Halo 2 and Halo 3 were some of my most played games of their generations. I put in an immense amount of time into the online games, and played through each of the campaigns once or twice on my own, or maybe, sometimes, with a friend. Something about this series just seemed to click back then.

But Reach was like something else entirely. It captured something special. I'm not sure what it was, because the gameplay is probably objectively a bit worse than Halo 3, and the story is not an objectively good one. But this game felt like it tried something new, tried something that was more than just an enhancement of what had always been there, and it provided characters and relationships that I was intrigued by in a way that Master Chief has never been anything other than a largely boring super soldier.

I think the great achievement for this one is the level design, which stepped away from the corridor shooter limitations that came with the first game and stepped deeper into the outdoor, sandbox arenas that would - I imagine - become one of the defining gameplay features of the series. At least, I hope that is what is taken from this. And, pleasantly, it feels hand-crafted rather than shaped by some algorithm. The levels hold some magic of intention still.

I would recommend a playthrough of this game with no limitations. Based on what I've played (which is not yet Halo 3 ODST, 4, 5), this is likely the height of the Halo single play experience. And the addition of firefight is pretty wonderful as well (though I think the Halo gameplay formula misses something when it doesn't have the sensation of moving from one place to the next). Avoid the online multiplayer and go for Halo 3 instead.

Next one up on the docket is Halo 2. But, first, a break from the world of Halo so that I can go into some other universe.

Halo is one of my favorite video game series of all time, and almost definitely my favorite FPS. I do admit a lot of that is due to nostalgia, but since I didn't play Halo Reach until high school, I feel like I can objectively review this one without that nostalgia blindness.

Halo: Reach is, in my opinion, easily the best of the series. The gameplay has improved from each subsequent game in terms of weapons, vehicles, and items. The enemy AI feels incredible and it seems that they can predict your plan before you even execute it. Teammate AI also finally seems like they're doing their job rather than acting as cannon-fodder as you do all the work.

Most importantly though, the story is finally a focus of the game. Halos 1-3 all had decent stories, but didn't strive to go much deeper than they had to. Halo: Reach finally takes time to explore and create unique characters each with their own personalities and goals. The themes of sacrifice, courage, and teamwork are far more pervasive and powerful as well. The tragedy of the game done brilliantly, and had me tearing up at least a dozen times throughout the story.

Halo: Reach is nearly a perfect FPS (one of the best of all time, in my opinion) and should be played by those familiar and unfamiliar with Halo alike.

5.00/5.00

Full Review: https://watchreadgame.com/halo-reach-review/

I played the remastered version of the game in Halo Master Chief Collection. Just feels dated and disappointing. Even with the enhanced graphics on the PC it looks like something from last decade. The gameplay has not made the transition from gamepad to mouse gracefully. If you've been dying to play Halo you might love it. If you're new to the franchise you might be left wondering what all the fuss was about. It's plagued with technical problems and performance far lower than should be possible with such aged graphics.

Besides sentimental value for a game you loved in the past there isn't much reason to get this. It's painfully obvious how outdated the games feels to just move. Modern shooters have improved the feel of aiming, movement, shooting so much that Reach was painful to play through. The story may have been decent in the past but it isn't anything special and falls way short by today's standards.

I picked up this collection for my memories of Combat Evolved and Halo 2. I never played Reach and since it's currently available I dove right in. Don't get me wrong I'm still happy that it's finally ported and I am going to finish it just for the sake of completing Halo's story.

I found the single player campaign to be a lot of fun. It took me about 20 hours to finish the game on medium. At first I started on the 2nd to hardest difficulty but found it pretty punishing. I got better as the game progressed however so I would consider re-playing it at some point.

The graphics were pretty good, an interesting style. Music was good and the weapons felt right. I enjoyed seeing some new weapons. (New to me at least).

I'm looking forward to playing the other games in this collection when they come out.

(playing on PC; campaign only)

This game got off to a rough start for me. The gameplay didn't seem particularly compelling -- mostly a mindless shooting gallery. The graphics aren't anything special, but that's to be expected from a 360-era game. The sound... The sound is bad. Something is seriously broken with the audio volume for music vs. weapons vs. speech. You can barely hear your guns, and in some places it seems like sound effects are completely missing. Hopefully they get this figured out before they port the other games from the series to PC.

For the first half of the game, I honestly struggled to discern an actual storyline, mostly due to the fact that I missed almost all of the dialogue in the broken sound mixing.

However, things picked up in the second half. The story started to get interesting (maybe because I was actually able to follow the voice lines). I'm not sure if the audio is mixed better in the second half, if I simply got used to it, or if it got patched. Gameplay never changed, though -- still the same shooting gallery.

As a newbie to the franchise, I was surprised how cartoony the enemies seem. I'd have thought that the bad guys in robot soldier guy game would be a bit more serious. You've got the little robot Ewoks, the grunting bug guys, the other grunting bug guys, and the big grunting guys.

This game was okay. Not bad. Not amazing. But they have my attention enough for me to look forward to playing Halo: Combat Evolved. Whenever that happens.

As someone who's never touched an Xbox console, playing Reach on PC is my absolute first experience with the Halo franchise.

And its.... okay. (Speaking from the perspective of someone doing only the campaign; currently up to the level where I'm flying around in space on a spaceship)

It just seems like a fairly brain-dead shooting gallery. Kill all of the aliens, watch a short cutscene, repeat. Not saying it's bad, per se. I just wonder if it's another franchise that's propped up quite-a-bit by nostalgia.

What is bad, however, is the audio mixing in this game. It's the absolute worst I've heard on any game in recent memory. It's really, really bad. No matter how you tweak the audio sliders, you can barely hear dialogue from other characters, or even the gunshots & explosions coming out of your own character. It's like everything that makes a noise is in a closet on the other side of the map. I'd say it's just an early release bug, but after Googling around, it sounds like this has been an issue since the game released on consoles.